MSI Z77A GD80 review -
Product Showcase

Product Showcase

Above and below packaging and bundle. As you'll notice the MSI Z77A-GD80 is certainly a good looking motherboard alright. The traditional black & blue style, new cooling heatsinks. Yeah it's a pretty thing for the eyes alright.

Included with the motherboard are the standards like SATA cables, manual, driver CD, IO rear backplane, some V-Check cables but also a USB 3.0 bracket was included.

The I/O panel of the MSI Z77A-GD80 reveals two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports with another four USB 2.0 ports. The motherboard features three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0 expansion slots and four PCIe x1 slots.

A Realtek ALC898 high definition audio codec is the source for audio, and we spot an Intel 82579V 10/100/1000 fast Ethernet controller.

There is a single PS/2 combo port that can be used for either a keyboard or mouse, optical and coaxial SPDIF out ports, HDMI, 15pin D-Sub VGA, DisplayPort/ThunderBolt connector, Gigabit LAN (Intel 82579V) and a Clear CMOS button for us overclockers and tweakers.

Underneath that DSUB VGA connector you'll find a mini DisplayPort connector, that thus functions as Display Port and/or the Thunderbolt connector. Thunderbolt devices can be daisy chained to up-to 6 devices can be shared on the same port.

MSI Z77A GD80 reviewWe review the MSI Z77A GD80 motherboard. Albeit the GD80 shares 95% of the DNA of the GD65 it comes with one feature that some of you will be very interested in, a ThunderBolt controller. So
have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Z77A-GD80 motherboard. Onwards to the next page please.

MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard reviewWe review the MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard. The MSI Z77A-GD65 is intended for Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge processors on Socket LGA1155, and they tend to overclock rather well as we'll show you. Even on air cooling you can reach 5 GHz with a motherboard as used today. Have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Z77A-GD65 'Ivy Bridge' motherboard.

MSI Z77A GD65 motherboard previewIn this MSI Z77A GD65 motherboard preview we look at the hardware that will empower future Ivy bridge processors. Obviously we can't share any details, but have a look at the pretty pictures.